The Guilt of the Gunman
by DarkShadowsFalling
Summary: Jigen is faced with the guilt of Karen Korinsky's life and death. This is dark. Implied yaoi. Implied character death


The Guilt of the Gunman

*A Lupin the 3rd oneshot. Taken from the movie "Voyage to Danger." Really really dark. Please forgive me for that. And there is implied stuff that wasn't in the movie. I just had fun with it. Anyway, enjoy! Characters belong to Monkey Punch, TMS, and Funimation, respectively*

I don't normally let women get to me. The only one who can is Fujiko, but we all know why and so that's not a big surprise. I have always distanced myself from the fairer sex because of work reasons…and personal ones.

But I didn't figure on Karen Korinsky. In all of my well-laid plans, I never figured on the Russian beauty with the brains to match. And in some ways, I don't think she'd figured on me either.

Lupin picked her up because she had built the Ivanoff. We needed her to help us steer the friggin' thing. But he also wanted to keep her safe from Shot Shell when they took the bait he'd set in front of them, a tantalizing worm in front of a very greedy fish.

Of course…I found myself attracted to the girl right away. She was lovely, with long medium-brown hair and crystalline eyes…I'll never forget them, as long as I live. They pierced deep into my soul from the very first time I saw them.

It seemed that she felt the same. She even asked me to show her how to fire a gun. I thought she was just interested. And so I did…I held my Magnum in my hand and fired it at the makeshift target. As always, I saw it in slow motion, the bullet firing from the barrel, spiraling through the air, and plunging into the canvas material of the chair. It's music and sex and everything to me, that sight.

She took the gun from me and held it out one handed, as though to fire it that way. I knew it would have too much kickback and stepped up behind her, holding one arm gently and moving my hand along her gun arm until my fingers closed around hers. I brought her other hand up and murmured that she should use two hands to fire.

When I stepped back, she asked me if she should aim for the head or the heart. Perhaps that should have concerned me, but I simply replied that she should fire at the center of the body because it takes more than one bullet to kill a man. She held her hands steady…and then turned to me.

I froze, unsure how things had turned this way. But there was no mistaking the look in her eyes. There was murderous intent…and it was aimed at me. The hatred burned in those crystal depths with a passion one might reserve for sex.

When she spoke, there was a barely contained fury lacing her voice like poison. She knew me, she said. She'd known me the second she'd seen me. I had killed her father. And, she believed, in cold blood.

Her father…Yes, I remembered. I should have connected the two. Korinsky had the same colored eyes as his daughter. I'd always found them to be mysterious…and a little bit sexy, even in the older man.

But she was wrong. Very wrong. I had not killed her old man in cold blood. I wouldn't do that to him…I had actually loved the bastard. But apparently his love of me was a lie.

We'd been partners, in business and in bed. I'd been working with him for a long time, helping him with his transactions with clients and shit like that. We'd just struck a deal with someone who had been stubborn as Hell and had sent off what they'd ordered. We were just waiting for payment, which was set for one afternoon in a field.

We were to go there and we would find a suitcase full of money to pay for the goods. In high spirits, Korinsky and I had celebrated in a very carnal, drunk fashion and then ambled our way down to the spot where the suitcase was.

The suitcase was there. But there was no money in it. I leaned down and looked at it, but there was nothing there. We'd been double-crossed by the bastards who'd bought the goods. We'd blindly put our faith in them and hadn't asked for the money up front. And we were left looking like idiots.

I heard a click of a gun behind me and my brain stopped. No…It couldn't be…Korinsky was pulling a firearm on me?! Did he think I'd double-crossed him?!

I turned fast and found him staring at me with a betrayed, broken look. He really did feel that way. And he was going to kill me.

But I wouldn't let it happen. I have too much of a fight instinct in me. I grabbed my own gun, drawing it in .02 seconds and firing, shooting him directly in the heart. He went down without a sound and I felt my own heart shatter like glass.

I heard his little girl scream and I had looked up to see her running towards us. Cold dread filled my stomach and I fled, leaving her to cry over the corpse of her father…

I have never ever forgiven myself for it. And apparently, neither had she.

I stared down the barrel of my gun and into her face. I knew I could never say anything to fix what I had done. My death would be the only way to atone for it.

But it didn't happen then. We were being attacked and she lost her balance. I grabbed her against me and put the gun away. I surprised her, I think. But all I could thing of was her safety. I couldn't let anything happen to her. Not before she could gain her retribution.

Once we got away, Lupin split up the group and Karen was to go with Pops and Goemon to Maui. I was to stay with him and Fujiko. I was semi-relieved. She was safe. That's all I wanted.

I nearly was killed while we dealt with Shot Shell. But I'm a resourceful bastard and managed to save myself. In my mind, I kept telling myself that only one person had the right to kill me and that was Karen.

I met up with everyone again and when I saw Karen, there was a rush of desire and happiness that she was all right. I knew I shouldn't feel that way over the woman who would kill me. But I couldn't help it.

Lupin stood behind me as Karen and I stared each other down. I was ready to accept my fate from her. I really was. And she raised her gun to pull the trigger…and fired past me as Keith Hayden, the man who had replaced Pops on our case, came up to kill us, shooting like a maniac.

Lupin and I fired right back and he went down. But when I turned to look at Karen, I found, to my horror, that she was on the ground. She'd been shot in the stomach and was bleeding heavily.

I ran to her and took her in my arms. She spoke to me, softly, kindly. She pressed a control into my hand and told me that she wanted the Ivanoff destroyed because of the nuclear missiles within. She wanted me to do that for her. I told her I would.

She passed from this world to the next in my arms. I felt she no longer bore a grudge towards me. But I felt an insane amount of sadness, regret, and guilt. I wouldn't be able to atone for what I had done to her.

Keith Hayden came up again, but Lupin killed him with a single shot to the forehead. I felt a swelling of gratitude to my friend as he murmured, "That'll teach you to shoot at a woman."

And so I held Karen's body in my arms and pressed the button on the detonator. The Ivanoff exploded, taking with it the bastards of Shot Shell. It had been her dying wish, and I had fulfilled it.

We buried her in Russia and then left as soon as possible. But I have never forgotten her. Nor do I think I will any time soon.

She was something special, someone that I would have willingly died for, whether it was protecting her or letting her kill me. And I still carry the guilt of murdering her father around in my heart. She might never have died if I hadn't killed Korinsky.

Lupin tells me I need to move on, but I really can't. And so I sit here, alone in the dark. And I scratch Karen's name in the side of a bullet and load the bullet into the gun. Karen will have her retribution…


End file.
